


and reach for them

by blueberrynewt



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, Multi, Spock (Star Trek)-centric, am i projecting? hell yeah, spock begins to learn how to be, the mortifying ordeal, the rewards of being loved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:16:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28699032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberrynewt/pseuds/blueberrynewt
Summary: Being a person is hard. Spock begins to understand.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	and reach for them

**Author's Note:**

> this morning i was thinking about spock and the whole mortifying ordeal of being known thing and i said this:
> 
> "to be such an intensely private person so full of shame and confusion about your identity and your place in the world, terrified of being seen for what you are - what you believe yourself to be - and then to be seen despite that, over and over, and to have people next to you who don't turn away, who against all odds stay beside you and tell you that you don't need to know who you are or where you belong, that you don't have to be one thing or the other, that you don't need to be what others want you to be or see the world the way they do, that you can simply exist as you are and be loved for exactly that -"
> 
> and so i wrote this. i'm projecting so much in this fic it's incredible. i almost cried writing it.

Spock is alone.

That is nothing new, of course. Spock has spent most of his life alone, in one way or another. He learned shame early, has worn it like a shield since early childhood: shame in his heritage, in his emotions, in his private failures. His inability to connect. To fit. To _be_.

On Vulcan it was unbearable. The scorn of his peers heavy on his mind and body, the only solace he found was with his mother and sister — his human family. The source of so much of his childhood shame. But they demanded too much of him, too: expected him to see things the way they did, to have the same feelings and needs as they did, and Spock simply didn’t. He _wasn’t_ human, after all.

Starfleet was...an improvement. At the Academy, Spock buried himself in his schoolwork, and quickly rose to the top of every class. Instructors loved him; classmates avoided him. Being good at school meant he didn’t have to be good at anything else, so Spock didn’t try to do anything else. What would he have done, anyway? He ignored the sideways glances and not-quite-whispers from his peers, and focused on being the best student Starfleet Academy had ever seen.

Sometimes, though, when Spock’s defenses were low, he would watch his human classmates interact — the casual touches, the playful insults, the easy affection — and despite himself, he would _want_. Sometimes, in a crowded hall, someone would jostle him by accident and Spock would catch a fleeting glimpse of their mind — of jumbled thought and feeling and need — and it was all he could do to keep from crying out.

He got used to it. Learned how to cope with solitude, with never being seen. He couldn’t _allow_ himself to be seen, couldn’t let anyone perceive him as he was: out of place, not knowing who he was, always feeling the wrong thing or feeling too much or not feeling at all, just a little piece of _lack_. He let them see him as they chose to see him, the Vulcan, smart but emotionless, full of knowledge and empty of feeling, unyielding, _cold_.

There was a piece of him, somewhere, that protested. A warm and soft _something_ that ached to be seen and held and allowed to be.

He learned to hide this piece very well, very early.

Now he is alone again, and it is getting so much harder to be alone. The want, the need for contact is heavier every day, but the shame is heavier still, so he is here alone and he is trying to meditate it all away. To become what he is supposed to be.

He is failing.

The door chimes and Spock opens his eyes, half-relieved to have an excuse to stop meditating. “Enter,” he says, and the door slides open.

The captain steps inside and holds up a chessboard. “You left this in my quarters after our game last night,” he says. “I thought you’d want it back.”

Spock blinks. “Yes,” he agrees. “Thank you, Captain.”

Captain Kirk puts the chessboard on a table but doesn’t turn to go. Spock lifts an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

“Spock —” The captain takes half a step toward him, then stops. “Spock, are you all right?”

“I am quite well, Captain.” _Vulcans do not lie_.

“What happened today —” The captain rubs his hands together, then rubs his neck. “It must have been...difficult for you.”

“No more difficult than it was for you, sir. Is there something else you need?”

The captain’s mouth opens, but before he can answer, the door slides open again. Doctor McCoy is in the doorway, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Spock turns to him. “Can I help you, Doctor?”

“The question you oughta be asking is whether _I_ can help _you_ , Spock, and it just so happens that you’re in luck, because I can.” McCoy holds up a loaded hypospray. “I’ve ordered this injection for everyone who got infected with polywater. It should clear your system of any residual effects.”

“Very well.” Spock waits while McCoy approaches him, strengthens his mental shielding against the inevitable skin contact. The doctor’s knuckles are warm against his neck as he depresses the hypospray. Spock keeps his breathing carefully even.

When the doctor backs away, Spock gives him a small nod of acknowledgment. “If that is all, gentlemen,” he says, “I will return to my meditation.”

They go. Both of them pause in the doorway to look back at him, but neither says anything, and Spock does not look at them.

***

Now and then, Spock’s control slips. When Kirk or McCoy is injured and unconscious, sometimes Spock cannot resist touching them, just to be sure — just to feel the flutter of a mind against his own, the soft reassurance of another consciousness beside him. Sometimes that warm creature inside him is so close to the surface he has to fight it down with a conscious effort, and sometimes he is not entirely successful.

It is so hard now. It seems that every day there’s something new, another chink in his carefully wrought defenses. There have been too many close calls, too many vulnerable moments. After each one, Spock wants desperately to go to his quarters and bury himself in such a deep pile of his own shame that no one will ever be able to dig him out.

He is so, so afraid of being seen.

It hurts to meet people’s eyes. He knows now that they know — that they have seen him for what he is: weak, meaningless, futile; that their respect is a polite fiction, that they can view him with nothing but uncertainty and distaste. He wants them far away, wants them never to look at him or think about him again.

He wants them impossibly close. He wants them to hold him and never let him go.

Meditation no longer helps.

***

On Inos IV, Spock sits cross-legged on a cliff overlooking an ocean. Seabirds circle below, calling to each other in hoarse voices that seem to echo off the sky. He focuses on their movements, on the rhythm of the waves against the rocky shore, and lets these patterns guide his breathing and his thoughts. He is here. Only he and the sea and the sky and the circling birds, this endless pattern, this timeless dance. He is here.

Soft footsteps on the grass behind him, and another body settles into place on his right. It’s Jim, and a few seconds later Leonard is there too, taking the place on Spock’s left. They sit close enough that his knees touch their legs. A small warmth.

“What are you thinking about, Spock?” Jim asks. Spock breathes in.

“Those birds,” he says. “Or the waves in the ocean. They exist.” He pauses. It’s hard to formulate the words. “There isn’t any question about _why_ they exist, or whether they ought to exist. They simply do. And they are...beautiful.”

“Mm,” Leonard agrees, watching. “They are.”

“Is it like that?”

Jim’s hand in his is warm. “Yes,” he says. “It’s exactly like that.”

“It’s hard to see.”

“I know.” Leonard’s hand is softer still. “But that doesn’t make it less true.”

Spock breathes in and out very slowly, and closes his eyes. The warm thing in his chest is bigger than it’s ever been, and at last he is not smothering it in the dark. Two hands in his, two minds touching his, an endless sky.

And he is not alone.


End file.
